from the the-finer-things dept

In the realm of both embracing new business models in video games and generally being an all around awesome company, it doesn't get a whole lot better than Double Fine. If we were to write a playbook for a gaming company, it would probably read like Double Fine's history, from producing enormously entertaining games, to embracing crowd-funding models, to treating their fans in a manner too rare in their industry.

Perhaps Bad Golf 2 will prove to be the One Direction of Double Fine's latest Amnesia Fortnight prototype-off. Not selected as a winning project in the X-Factorish voting, it seemed destined to never become a reality – until fans decided to make it anyway. And now it's generating more headlines than any of the "official" picks did.

That's because fourteen fans of Double Fine are collaborating on the company's own website to produce this game themselves. So, instead of the game never being produced, it will be realized by dedicated and passionate fans. While many companies might go berserk over this, Double Fine is not your average company. From the top down, everyone seems thrilled.

BG2 ideasmith Patrick Hackett, a ‘tech guru’ at Double Fine, told Eurogamer that “Personally, I was flattered by the idea that people would want to collaborate to make a game idea of mine. I really couldn’t have been more excited to hear about this idea and told them I’d support them as much as I could.”

“As for it being Double Fine’s property – Greg and I brought the situation up to Tim and Justin and they approved of the idea, citing that any production should remain in the creative commons. Because of that, the project’s source control repository is available for free and the final product will never be sold.”

This very specifically bucks every rebuttal typically offered by those that advocate for strong and stronger protection of intellectual property. Somehow, a company is giving free access to their own source code for a game based on IP the company developed, and is happy about doing so, while fans of the company are creating the game under the full knowledge that there won't be any monetary compensation. How could any of that be possible if we relied on the words of Electronic Arts and their ilk?

The answer is that creation and collaboration are a natural part of the human psyche, and they're spurred on when the collaborating parties all treat one another like human beings. Meanwhile, Double Fine is already taking an interest in the project's success as an avenue to then release their own Bad Golf 3 game, should the project pan out. Everyone wins, all because nobody brought the legal hammer down to protect their intellectual property and managed to treat their fans like human beings.

from the how-not-to-do-it dept

Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about a rather encouraging development in filmmaking, highlighting the story of Warner Bros. film studio working out a deal with the producer and actors of the popular Veronica Mars TV show, that if they could prove demand for a film via Kickstarter, Warner Bros. would fund the rest of the film. Basically, Warner Bros. had been unconvinced that there was enough demand for a movie to finance it upfront. But, with tools like Kickstarter today, you can prove demand upfront, taking away a big part of the risk. And that's exactly what happened, as the project raised over the $2 million target very quickly, and eventually brought in $5.7 million. Part of what was interesting about this was it showed how movie studios could actually embrace crowdfunding as well, creating some interesting hybrid models that don't always involve some studio head deciding what people will and won't like.

The movie came out last week to very good reviews... but leave it to Warner Bros. to totally muck it up, screw over the goodwill from all those backers and scare people off from such future collaborations. That's because one of the popular tiers promised supporters that they would get a digital download of the movie within days of it opening. But, of course, this is a major Hollywood studio, and due to their irrational fear of (oh noes!) "piracy" they had to lock things down completely. That means that backers were shunted off to a crappy and inconvenient service owned by Warner Bros called Flixster, which very few people use, and then forced to use Hollywood's super hyped up but dreadful DRM known as UltraViolet.

“My first and last time using Flixster or Ultraviolet,” Jennifer Gottried wrote. “Not happy about what a pain the digital “download” is, but loved the movie!” Carolyn O'Neill said she felt “ripped off,” adding “I will not be supporting anything VMars related in the future, and may never support a similar Kickstarter project again.”

Others labeled Flixster “unreliable,” “crap,” “slow” and “punishing.” There are those who downloaded the movie without a hiccup, and those who did have been effusive in their praise. Yet the majority expressed dismay....

Reading through the comments shows an awful lot of angry folks, with lots of blame being directed at Flixster, and some people angry that the creator of Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas, let this happen. He eventually posted that while he had "hoped" that Warner Bros. would allow more options, "unfortunately, it just wasn't possible. In the end, Flixster was the best option for getting the digital movie reward out to all of you, worldwide, at the same time." There may be something to do with regional restrictions, yet in the comments, you see people claim that when they tried to get their digital copy, they were told, "Sorry, the redemption code you have entered is not valid for the territory you are currently trying to redeem from." So, it's not clear how Flixster actually solves that global issue. Multiple people in the comments note that they eventually just gave up getting the authorized version and hit up unauthorized sources instead.

Eventually, Warner Bros. announced that it would provide refunds to backers who had trouble getting the digital download, which seems like the least it could do, given the situation. But, the end result appears to have left a sour taste in a lot of peoples' mouths. So, way to go, legacy Hollywood, for taking an exciting success story of internet-empowered opportunity, and destroying it with crappy and lame proprietary platforms and restrictive DRM. Once again, you show how to screw up just about every opportunity handed to you.